Down goes Brown has his preview for the Bruins and Habs, this is good stuff.
#6 Canadiens vs. #3 BruinsLooks like former UND Fighting Sioux forward Chris Porter has played himself into a job in St. Louis...
The matchup: Montreal coach Jacques Martin might have trouble with the Bruins, since he historically struggles in the playoffs when faced with good teams built by the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The view from Montreal: The Canadiens would love to get some payback against Zdeno Chara if they weren't being held back by arbitrary rules, like the instigator penalty and also the basic laws of physics.
The view from Boston: Tim Thomas set a league record for save percentage this season, although that number drops significantly if you factor in the ability to save his own dignity in fights against Carey Price.
Player to watch: Dr. Mark Recchi, who has kindly agreed to signal from the bench to let us know whether players being scraped off the ice onto a stretcher are actually injured or not.
Prediction: The Canadiens lose the series, but finally get their revenge on Chara at the end of game four when they all squeeze his hand really hard during the post-game handshakes.
Q: There’s a lot of talk about top-six forwards, defensemen and goaltending. But what about the third- and fourth-line forwards? How can you build them up and make the team better?Apparently the head coach of the Michigan Wolverines, Red Berenson, wasn't happy with the officiating after the final game of the Frozen Four. Yeah, ok! To some this might sound like sour grapes, but to others he has a point.
A: "That gets into the depth of your team, that NHL depth. I’d like to publicly say it, the person who took the greatest advantage of his opportunity was (Chris) Porter. He came in and he really stepped up. In his role, he was the most effective of the call-up players in my opinion. He was the one guy that came in and really said that he wants to position himself to be on the cups of being an everyday NHL player.
"(Ryan) Reaves came up and played well, too, but no one was more consistent at that than Porter. So I want to give that accolade to him. A lot of players are going to have to fight and earn that spot. If we have the depth and these players don’t earn that right, then they have to start in Peoria. I’m excited about what Porter did, I’m excited about what Reaves did, I’m excited (Vladimir) Sobotka back again, (B.J.) Crombeen … I think there’s good depth there."
“You can’t kill nine penalties,” said Michigan coach Red Berenson. “Like we said before the game, if they get three, if we can kill three penalties, that should be it. We’re not out there to take penalties.”This is where I would like to see a national standard in college hockey as far as how the game is called; the games were/are called differently from league to league. As most of us know; the WCHA is more lenient and lets more of the obstruction go than other leauges like Hockey East and CCHA officials call the most. In my opinion, there needs to be a happy medium but also there needs to be a set standard. In watching the NCAA hockey this spring I saw a lot of inconsistencies on how the game was called by the on ice officials, even during the Frozen Four. You never knew what was going to be called from game to game. What was a penalty in the first semi final game of the Frozen Four wasn’t a penalty during the second semi final game.
But that wasn’t all Berenson had to say.
“Every time a player falls down, it shouldn’t be a penalty, not in NCAA championship game hockey.”
